If you are a Guru customer, you should request them to create an app for EasySocial

Hi Mark

Want to be sure that I request the best before requesting!

http://www.joomlalms.com/

I could get the above and go back to Community Builder

best

Paul

Hello Paul,

Why don't you check around JED and see if there are any others? Perhaps there would be a better choice around?

Mark,

I am waiting for your version of LMS (Joomla Component), will it take long?

Haha, I am not sure if this is really a good idea but we'll see

hi, Paul
JoomlaLMS offers both community builder & jomsocial compatibility plus EasySocial intergation is possible too (custom integration) Just get in touch with JoomlaLMS support team
regards,
Jen

Jen, are you from Joomla LMS? I would like to get in touch with someone from Joomla LMS

P/S: Since iJoomla does not have any plans to integrate Guru with EasySocial (since they are also the owner of JomSocial), we'll try to initiate with the guys over at http://babel-university.com/ and see what we can come up with

Mark,

I still believe in a Stackideas version:.

You could start with an App Easysocial a good sale value would be $ 200

Cristiano

Hi Mark

My off the wall suggestion a LMS where the end user can create his or her own course ;-) All linked in with a ES profile of course.

just a thought

Paul

My experience with iJoomla snd Guru has not been good. I wasted a purchase of GURU when it first came out back in late November 2011. It was full of bugs and it wasn't ready for Joomla 3 for a long time, so I could not use it at all.

On Monday I asked some basic questions in the forums on IJoomla in the pre-sales section. It is 3 days later and no response. I asked them the upgrade info stuff, and if and when they planned to offer similar plugins for EasySocial. I did mention I refused to use JomSocial because of my previous history. Not a good sign to me that they do not even take the time to answer these pre-sales (renewal) questions I asked, so I would rate their support a poor or a D rating. Their forum is not that busy, so I have no idea why I couldn't get an answer.

As much as I believe GURU has improved since late November 2011, there is the serious lack of support issue. So I will pass on GURU until they get their act together. To bad because GURU offers what I need feature wise.

I have been looking at ways to make EasyDiscuss into a learning based area, and will post later on how it might be adapted to become a good alternative to products such as GURU.

Randall

LOL! Yeah Mark EasyLearn would be a good product count me in for support on this, we will surely have a use for a LMS component like UDemy or Lynda.com.

Randall, thanks for the GURU info, I am planning of using it in one of our upcoming project. Hmmm... their latest version looks good but I read a lot of complaints about it, how buggy it is and their support

Mark maybe EasyAds is something to look at too LOL! I like the idea of AdsAgency but it was not designed properly IMO, the workflow of posting an Ad took me an hour to figure out, that's ridiculous.

Thanks,

Jackson

At this point of time, we don't have any intentions of creating a LMS but perhaps later down the road, who knows

Dear Mark,
please, feel free to contact JoomlaLMS support Manager Helga directly via helga@joomlalms.com
She will answer all your questions
regards,
Jen

Thank you Jen

UPDATE on GURU and EasySocial Plugins

Earlier last week, I asked some pre-sales questions on the iJoomla Guru Forums. For a number of days I did not get any answer. Finally, PaulS was able to take the time to answer my questions.

See: Pre-sales questions Guru - http://www.ijoomla.com/component/kunena/pre/31387-pre-sale-questions-guru-light-to-guru-professional/#35466

Here is the result of my queries about Guru and EasySocial plugins being developed.

Hi Randall,

Thanks for your inquiry regarding Guru Light. The answers to your question i have placed under each point you ask about
1. There is an upgrade path from Guru Light to Guru Pro - right? I have installed Guru Light on my test site and I will set everything up for the first course, and if I find that everything works with my Joomla 3 installation and the core extensions I am using, then I will seriously consider Renewing my subscription to Guru Professional.

Answer:
Yes you can upgrade from Guru light to guru pro at any time
2. My only concern at first pass through GURU is the Login, or subscription signup for Guru. I am using EasySocial as my site login/sihnup and I need to test more on how well Guru Light will work with EasySocial as per the login. If this works fine then there shouldn't be an issue with the renewal of my Guru Professional subscription.

Answer:
I hope it works ok for you with Easysocial and wouldn't think there will be any issues, but i am not able to give you a specific answer on that because our integration is with Jomsocial and they work great together but please let me know if you do find any issues.
3. Plugins for EasySocial. After the announcement of Jomsocial plugins for Guru, there have been a few inquiries on the StackIdeas forums about Guru plugins for EasySocial. Mark asked those interested to contact iJoomla to find out about any plans for making the same type plugins for EasySocial.

Answer:
We have just released plugins / Modules that integrate Guru Pro and jomsocial just beautifully but at the moment we are not currently working on any easysocial plugins.

You mention you were a long term customer of Jomsocial, I would be interested to know what has changed your mind with using Jomsocial. We are doing some amazing integrations with Jomocial and Ijoomla products and it would be a shame to miss out on this functionality. If there is anything in particular that has happened or any way i can return you as a happy Jomsaocial customer please reply and let me know. We have made many changes regarding support / testing, and the new Jomsocial 3.2 that will be released very soon has some outstanding new features in it. We would love to have you back as a customer

Either way i hope this helps with all the questions you had.

Have a great day
Paul

---------------------------------
My answers to PaulS
--------------------------------

Pre-sale questions Guru Light to Guru Professional 1 hour 13 minutes ago #35466
ChamberAnswers

Paul,

Thank you for answering my questions. I should note that for some reason I did not get a notification email that my questions were answered in the forum, so perhaps the notifications in this forum software isn't working, or do I have to add email notifications?

Answer:
We have just released plugins / Modules that integrate Guru Pro and jomsocial just beautifully but at the moment we are not currently working on any easysocial plugins.

You mention you were a long term customer of Jomsocial, I would be interested to know what has changed your mind with using Jomsocial. We are doing some amazing integrations with Jomocial and Ijoomla products and it would be a shame to miss out on this functionality. If there is anything in particular that has happened or any way i can return you as a happy Jomsaocial customer please reply and let me know. We have made many changes regarding support / testing, and the new Jomsocial 3.2 that will be released very soon has some outstanding new features in it. We would love to have you back as a customer

To answer this: I made a huge investment into using Jomsocial ( i owned multiple copies, and always found working with Mark Lee to be the only reason why I stayed with JomSocial. I made a decision to use JomSocial on my new site backbone back in 2008 - 2011 (over $40K in development and associated costs and over $140K invested after hiring some employees) and after Mark Lee left the JS Dev team there were so many issues that never got addressed, that I had to make an executive decision to cancel the project. I could not count on the JomSocial Team and owner to support the customer's needs. There were huge Support issues, mainly due to the owner of JS not listening to customers needs, like he knew what everyone needed. He did not listen, and this really aggravated the situation with me and many customers. There were outstanding bug fixes that were longstanding issues not being met, huge stability issues, the JS team was not listening at all to customers needs, you name it, it happened and my decision was the correct one. Follow Mark to where he went, and patiently wait to be able to have some direct input into something beyond what JomSocial offered. This was all before the iJoomla took over development, but I'm sure you know the challenges of repairing relationships with disgruntled customers has not been easy. There are many satisfied JS customers, but there are also many that are adopting EasySocial. And I know the reason why. Read further for the answer.

I recognize that JomSocial today is on a positive path, now that Merav and the iJoomla Group are in charge of management, however I am very very pleased with my relationship with the StackIdeas Team and Mark Lee, and his team. Mark and his team have been outstanding in ever aspect of being a loyal customer of their products, and they do amazing things to support all customers, including those that use JomSocial, and all other products, whether competitive or not, as their approach to development is like having my own development team with all three SI products that I use (EasySocial, EasyBlog, EasyDiscuss). I have been very actively involved with helping to foster the feature suggestions and direction of EasySocial, EasyBlog and EasyDiscuss, with direct input into new feature sets, late alpha/beta testing, and will stay with my decision. When I found out where Mark Lee went, I followed him, and the results have been exactly what I needed to recover after my decision to cancel my earlier site that used JomSocial. I now have a completely new site, and the direction I am focused on is more Enterprise Social (Knowledge focus, How to and e-Learning) focused rather than developing a social network that is like a Facebook.

I have followed the JomSocial development since iJoomla has taken over by iJoomla, and while I commend the positive progress, I see my needs would be best met by my keeping put with my steadfast relationship with the StackIdeas Team. There is no compelling reason for me to come back to Jomsocial. I came here to find out about Guru and not how Guru and JomSocial integrates. My needs for GURU are not directly related to needing JomSocial. I need Guru for what Guru can do feature set wise, not so much it's social integration features, but adding it to my site without social integration features would be a mistake. I have built a good reputation over the years, as I have been in development and marketing of software since 1984, and I look for companies that meet customers needs, and stay away from companies that take the Walled Garden approach to developing, marketing and supporting their products.

Walled Garden source - wikipedia
A closed platform, walled garden or closed ecosystem is a software system where the carrier or service provider has control over applications, content, and media, and restricts convenient access to non-approved applications or content. This is in contrast to an open platform, where consumers have unrestricted access to applications and content.

To see my Come Back as a JomSocial customer
I realize that you would like to see me come back as a customer of JomSocial, however my decision has been made on EasySocial. The StackIdeas Team is the magic ingredient I believe makes their products world class and outstanding. As I said, I am here to inquire about Guru, to find out if my needs can be met. I do not see plugins for EasySocial to be a huge barrier as they are not a major development effort. I want to know if Guru will be supported in my Garden. My customer base is every Chamber of Commerce in the world. ChamberAnswers.com is focused on small businesses and chambers, not trying to be a social network. I have over 1800 chambers following on Twiiter for CA, twitter.com/chamberanswers and I haven't even released the ChamberAnswers Online Community yet.

EasySocial Plugins for GURU.
There have been some people on the StackIdeas forums asking about Guru as an LMS, and as much as Jomsocial and EasySocial appear to be direct competition, there are many new StackIdeas customers that would buy Guru if they knew that it would be supported properly by taking a transparent approach. Many have dropped JomSocial in favor of EasySocial for the same reasons I had. Many were in a similar situation as me with their bad experiences with JS before the iJoomla group became the new managers, and while there has been huge progress on JomSocial, the StackIdeas team has built a world class reputation for Customer Support that attracts new customers. many of whom own JomSocial, and they have bought into EasySocial and are developing new sites that they will migrate over their JomSocial users when they feel they can do so to meet their future site needs. Essentially, many have two sites. The live site using their JomSocial with all the legacy items, and the new (not live site) that is using EasySocial.

Old issues with previous version of JomSocial live long, and I am sure you realize it is a challenge to change people's memories of the old Jomsocial train wreck days in the period between Mark leaving the JS Team and the iJoomla group taking over. In my opinion, I do not feel the previous owner of JS was the most agreeable to input from customers, and he p*ssed off many people with his attitude of being his way or the highway approach. I was one of those customers that was loyal and got angered by his poor approach to handle things properly to meet the customers needs. As mentioned, the iJoomla Group taking over was the best thing that could happen to JomSocial to support previous and new customers.

GURU
I will note, there are many StackIdeas customers that would gladly become Guru customers, if they knew it is going to be supported to meet their needs. Mark Lee has suggested that all of us get together to ask your Guru team to consider implementing EasySocial versions of the Guru plugins. Mark and his team support JomSocial users that use the StackIdeas products and never take an approach of neglecting them. as he takes a transparent approach to make sure every customer's needs is satisfied.

There is an alternative LMS that is now getting attention, as a direct result that many potential customers are finding that if the Guru Team is not interested in having customers that use EasySocial rather than JomSocial, and is not going to have plugins for EasySocial or other Joomla extensions, then they will go with the alternative LMS. I personally do not believe this alternative is as good as what i see in GURU, but their approach is if they can't get what they want and need with GURU, they will find an alternative and actively and heavily support it. They are also asking the Mark and StackIdeas Team to integrate or develop an application that works with EasySocial, as they all believe the same thing as I do, that they get to have direct input as a customer into new features, and new features and bugs get fixed in record time. Mark has said, why reinvent a new Guru competitor. Ask at iJoomla for EasySocial plugins. If they don't meet customers needs then maybe we will consider this. But why not ask.

My approach is to see GURU plugins developed for EasySocial. Guru exists today. It has come a long way to meeting my needs and the needs of most people, so why reinvent the wheel as Mark has said in the SI forums lately. I know I can encourage Mark and his team to develop the EasySocial plugins, or alternatively, because of time constraints to Mark and his Team being very busy, we will find and pay a competent developer to implement the EasySocial plugins for Guru, but my first approach was to see the decision on whether they would be developed here first. And more importantly, will EasySocial customers be treated like any other Guru customer? It should not matter if a new customer uses JomSocial or EasySocial. There need is the features of GURU.

Something for you to take back to a GURU Team meeting.
It is good that JomSocial 3.2 is making huge strides forward. Competition is healthy for a market to satisfy all customers with their individual needs. It's good to see you released plugins / Modules that integrate Guru Pro and jomsocial just beautifully. When you say, at the moment we are not currently working on any easysocial plugins, does this mean you are open to the possibility?

If you are open to the possibility, then you will gain new customers. However, if your team believes that GURU and other iJoomla products should not support EasySocial because it is viewed in direct competition with JomSocial, then that would be viewed as taking a Walled Garden approach, and this will lose the confidence of many customers that would have bought GURU. Buying Guru should not be dependent on having to have or buy JomSocial to get social features the customer needs. The transparency non-Walled Garden approach would see you gain new customers.

The competitive approach would be to ask Guru customers use JomSocial instead of EasySocial, and this will see you lose potential new customers that would have bought Guru. They see it is not supporting the customers direct needs, but more that iJoomla is supporting your direct needs to make customers use iJoomla only products for their social integration. They are reluctant to invest in a product that they believe will not be supported by their individual needs.

I am not giving up on Guru, but I am currently holding off on the renewal of GURU until I see if the plugins can be implemented for EasySocial in a timely manner. And I want to learn more about your team's transparency or non-walled garden ideas on where Guru is headed in the future. If it is tightly integrated with Jomsocial that is fine, as long as it will be supported for other social products such as EasySocial and EasyDiscuss and EasyBlog, or any other Joomla extension. The Open or inclusionary approach.

Thank you for taking the time to answer my questions. I look forward to you answering my question about Guru and other extensions other than JomSocial for social integration.

Randall

Thanks for updating us on this Randall, it's sad to see that they are taking the path to only work on their own extensions only. In fact, their move just shows how shallow their mindset is when it comes to open competition. Well, if that's the case then I guess there's nothing much we can do and we'll most likely move on to integrate with other extensions.

Look on the bright side, after all it's an open source world and there are other competitors for LMS as well. If they are not going to integrate with EasySocial, I guess your best bet is to move to a new platform.

We have never blocked or closed any integrations with JomSocial even though we built our own social network because I believe customer has the rights to choose what they want to use.

Mark,

I think they are concerned about the competitive nature of EasySocial to JomSocial. I didn't mention it on the iJoomla support forum, but from what I have seen of Jomsocial 3.2 the features in the Stream Share box look like they directly copied EasySocial. Emoticons, Photos, Location, Who you with.

As far as Guru and EasySocial plugins, I added the Walled Garden comments for a reason and the stuff to take back to the Guru Team, because they are missing the train on getting more customers onboard by taking the same approach that StackIdeas takes to support all extensions if possible.

I am not counting the ES plugins for Guru closed yet. I'm going to wait and see the responses back.

Because my next post will most likely remind them that Guru could suffer the same fate JomSocial did when they neglected the customers needs to be met.

For my needs Guru would be the best solution so perhaps I may need to find a few other people that want the ES plugins for Guru to get them developed by a proficient developer/contractor for a development fee.

Randall

Hello Randall,

I guess they need to look at things out of the box and stop being so shallow. If Guru supports EasySocial, they would increase their customers base regardless of the competition with EasySocial. Look at our extensions for example, there's no reason for us to stop supporting JomSocial simply because we invented EasySocial. Why would we want to do that? It makes no sense in any business view because the more integrations you have with 3rd parties, the bigger your market share would be.

By preventing integrations with other 3rd parties, you are only shooting yourself on the foot and like you mentioned, they will end up the same fate as JomSocial when other learning management systems like Joomdle picks up it's pace

Or StackIdeas develop EasyLearn in the future LOL! just kidding!

You said it right Randall by saying "There were huge Support issues, mainly due to the owner of JS not listening to customers needs, like he knew what everyone needed. " I like to think there's no difference with the new management but hopefully they will change their ways to benefit themselves and the customers. Until now the changes they added or created in JS are more in UI and not in the framework itself, I'm still not seeing what I love what Mark and his team did at the start of ES which is the Privacy.

Hopefully, in the future more Joomla component Developers will follow StackIdeas Customer Support model.

Jackson

Thanks for the kind compliments Jackson

UPDATE FROM PAULS at IJoomla on Guru and ES plugins

April 13, 2014

Hi Randall,

Thanks for your reply, you raise some interesting points, and it is good to hear why people change from one product to another.
I agree that competition is a great thing and Mark having jomsocial plugins is great, In the future plugins for easysocial may also be a good thing but at the moment we are focusing on our own products. This is not because of an "us & them" situation it is purely because we have lots of great things planned for our own products before we would look at plugins for someone else's.. I'm sure there will be some users of our system. that will want easysocial plugins and in the short term a 3rd party provider might be interested in picking that one up.

i never say never but at the moment the priority is integration in our own products first. Once that's done who knows It may be an idea to ask Mark if he is planning any plugins like he as done with easyblog and the group/ event blog plugins which are great.

Thanks for the feedback

PaulS

As a suggestions it would be a good idea that if anyone wants to see iJoomla Guru support for EasySocial plugins, maybe you will post your willingness to buy Guru Pro if they support plugins for EasySocial. The more interested customers the more incentive to support EasySocial.

Go to this Pre-sales topic on the iJoomla support forums: http://www.ijoomla.com/component/kunena/pre/31387-pre-sale-questions-guru-light-to-guru-professional/reply/35489/

Randall

Hi Randall

I just mailed them. thanks for posting all this info here.

best

Paul

*************************************************************************

Hi Support

I am posting because of this here:

http://stackideas.com/forums/lms-learning-management-system-elearning-for-es

I for one am interested in GURU for Easy Social. I am a long time Community Builder User and just spent the last 2 months switching to Easy Social. And I am a very happy Stackideas customer indeed. :woohoo: I would buy the Guru Professional version if there were Easy Social integration.

One detail that I am curious about… Is it possible with your software that a user can create their own course. e.g. a slide presentation or a video with a description?

thanks

Paul

Hi Guys.

For those looking for an update on our new LMS Shika, we just posted a Labs blog post about it. We would love your input in getting this as close to everyone's needs as possible. http://techjoomla.com/techjoomla-labs/introducing-shika-an-awesome-new-lms-extension-for-joomla.html

Thanks for sharing Parth

Dear Colleagues

I am very interested in this post. Months ago I commented to Mark the possibility to include a LMS for EasySocial when video integrations come to ES. I have years of experience in Social Learning Context because is the main topic of my website (Learning about Optometry or Ophthalmology). I explain how is focused:
1.- I use EasySocial in order users learn by comments and pictures. They use the Social Network to upload their pictures of Clinical Cases to solve it and discuss. The comments have increased since I migrated from JomSocial to EasySocial.
2.- When they want to share a more complete information they use their own Blogs at EasyBlog and they interact by comments.

But unfortunately the most important and atractive "Learning by Videos" is not possible with StackIdeas, therefore I use IGuru. The experience with IJoomla is HORRIBLE but I think they offer 3 basic options that are neccessary:
1.- Lessons in a tree. This could improve a lot if the main video is in the same screen. Like http://www.video2brain.com or http://www.lynda.com
2.- Insert videos from vimeo only visible by domain. This is a professional tool in vimeo that offers the possibility to upload videos that only can be seen at your domain.

I think EasySocial could integrate this option in Groups in the Future for social learning. This would be a great new. How?
1.- Access to the group after paypal payment for a period of time.
2.- Integrate EasySocial videos with Vimeo domains.
3.- Create a LMS app with a videos three.
4.- Integrate Videos with Discussions in order to solve answers.

This could be an interesting starting point.

I attach you an image, I have also added this post into EasySocial voices. Please, vote if you find it interesting.
http://stackideas.com/voices/easysocial/item/332

Please Parth Lawate, It would be very interesting you develop your LMS in a tree way with the implementation of the Vimeo. If you need help with translations, please let me know. I have translated EasySocial, Invitex, JBolo and Broadcast.

Well that looks like a break through. They seem really motivated

I do not consider myself qualified to say how good or bad this product is!?!

I would be very curious to hear what other people think?

Having read their Blog post the things that really gets me excited are:

From: Create Content your way!

We aim at building a system that will give you the flexibility to use any kind of content to aid your teaching process.

(Video, pdf etc great)

From: SCORM Content

Needed for the more serious eLearning system users, we provide support for SCORM 1.2 as well as SCORM 2002.

(I Googled Scrom and it seems like a good idea. If you ever wanted to move to LMS another system or get people to join you from an existing LMS I guess this would be cool!)

From: Awesome Drag & Drop Course Builder

Put your content into easy to understand Modules & organise modules into a course. Drop in a Quiz or two & your done !

Also sounds cool. I just need to ask them if the end user can do this in the front end.

(That would be amazing)

Hi Manuel ,

We do support Course trees. You will be able to organize courses into Modules.. And each module will contain one or more lessons. Lessons can be Video lessons or any of the supported lesson types. For the Videos, you will be able to Upload your own videos or use existing ones from Vimeo/Youtube etc..

As for Discussions, we are offering a dedicated group which will be restricted to people taking the course where the discussions can take place.. Pls read the blog link i posted..

Hey @Paul Murray ! Thanks for your feedback !

We do have a Market place feature planned where Teachers will be able to create & manage their courses & sell them from the frontent.. We are not 100% sure yet market place will come in version 1.0.. but it will surely come in 1.1

Hi Parth

thanks for your reply. I just a comment on your Blog post, on your Site:

Well that looks like a break through. I do not consider myself qualified to say how good or bad this product is/even in theory!?! I could imagine being a Beta tester and or earlier adopter ;-) My first question is…

With respect to:

“Put your content into easy to understand Modules & organise modules into a course. Drop in a Quiz or two & your done !”

Does this happen in the front or back end?

Personally I would love to see a LMS that allowed users to create their own courses in the front end.

Also I think it would be cool if Shika worked with something like this:

http://www.nordmograph.com/extensions/index.php?option=com_virtuemart&view=productdetails&virtuemart_product_id=80&virtuemart_category_id=4&Itemid=58

This would mean that people who created courses (with some help from Mark and his team) could swap courses with other course creators!!! i.e. on the basis of points awarded for creating courses!!!

FYI this is one of the coolest learning systems I have seen in a while:

http://www.memrise.com/

Maybe you get some inspiration there?

best

Paul

Will checkout Memrise

And yes Shika will have its own payment systems with support for ES points !

Stackideas + Tech joomla = The perfect marriage.
Maybe Stackideas should consider buying TJ or merge so we can have the best of both world.

Thanks for the heads up on this checksum

I have a package of Guru, it cost me $ 200, not worth anything, I could never use, give it if you want, I will use anymore Guru, is a scam

Parth Lawate wrote:

Will checkout Memrise

And yes Shika will have its own payment systems with support for ES points !

Parth,

TechJoomla has a real opportunity with Shika to overtake the competitition off iJoomla's mistakes with Guru and supporting customers needs.

I suggest the following first steps to attract attention to Techjoomla Shika LMS:

1. Put out a Press Release with the specific intent to talk to customers of iJoomla (Guru) and the other Joomla based LMS products. Offer to LISTEN CLOSELY to the customers that have used your competitor’s services, and give them a VOICE to be heard. Do not ASSUME what features customers want most. This is some of the most valuable marketing information that you will ever get a chance to obtain and analyze. You will find there are huge gaps in customer service and the communication will really benefit you, as long as you react quickly by offering the disgruntled customers what they seem to be missing. A VOICE that will be heard by you and your Shika development & support team.

2. Create a RoadMap of features based on the VIOCES of customers. Create a location similar to StackIdeas Voices and Roadmap. Adhere to the Roadmap based on customer Voices.

3. Don't bite off more than you can chew and deliver. It is better to under promise and over deliver than to promise features that can't be delivered and supported with top world class. Quality. IJoomla has really missed the boat with Guru and you get ONE good shot at gaining solid support from the disgruntled customers that feel they wasted valuable time and money supporting Guru. Consider offering up a JOIN the SHIKA TEAM - a SpecialLEARNING & Support Group to give these people a new HOPE and HOME where they can feel included and not excluded.

I'm sure others can offer up some other key points to help you achieve SUCCESS.

Randall

My 3 Cents

Of course having a product which blows the competition out of the water is hugely important. Not to mention all that stuff that Randall & Manuel are talking about. But support is also soooo essential. And Support is not just about good or bad Support. Support is also about a state of mind. If the Support guy asks me after 3 pages of a long and horribly twisted post in a Support forum “Did you get your problem fixed” that just leaves me cold and wants me want to walk away. The problem, our problem, but not you and your problem! This might sound like nit picking. But in my experience, where there is one nit there are another 1000, that you do not see. And what the hell if you do not understand the problem just say so instead of hiding behind masks and mirrors. Talk with your customers not too them. Treat them with respect. If they cross a line, tell them so gently and with respect. Above all be open minded. But I guess that you know all of this stuff already

I kind of live in a parallel universe. The main thing I do is video editing. My speciality is a program called Final Cut Pro made by a company called Apple whom I am sure every one has heard of in here. They had a program called FCP7 and they made it EOL over night. They had brought out FCPX instead. They pissed off so many people and not just trolls but old and faithful customers. Three years later they are still struggling to repair the damage to their botched product launch. In a nut shell. They left existing customers in the cold and brought out a product that although amazing was not technically really ready. Here is what I consider to be a fascinating short article and cautionary tale from the world of video editing but I reckon it is just as relevant to what you and your potential customers want to do…

http://funwithstuff.com/blog/?p=946

From the above article about FCPX:

“Simply because it's easier to learn, in terms of the numbers of people who will use the program effectively, it's a clear win.”

@ Parth : Please fell free to spam me with all the latest news of your product paul(at)paurray.de

Thanks for sharing this guys

@Randall

Thanks for the inputs. The idea with Shika is to correct a lot of mistakes that have been done with eLearning systems in general. We hope to make Shilka an experience that we both teachers & students will enjoy. And in doing this, inputs from real users is going to be extremely critical.

Typically with all new products, we do a 'Labs Post' which gives an overall idea of what the product will be & open up a general direction for feedback & comments from users. That's the whole point of a Labs post. That's akin to a press release. Then based on the feedback we decide the exact features & priorities. The next step now will be follow up posts which will detail out the road ahead which would be the Roadmap. We don't have a 'User Voice' account yet.. but we have all channels open including our forums , Tickets & emails.

The development will be done in Agile sprints with all customers being involved in all phases with feedback & suggestions being implemented in small pieces keeping an eye out on quality & practicality.

Please do help us get attention to the blog post & get more comments on the same. Also we will consider your Press release idea as well

@Paul Thanks for sharing this ! On the version both Joomla 2.5 & 3x will be supported.. And the first Alphas of the product will be available to the Early adopters in a month or so.. The first stable release will be around 2 months from now

Thanks for sharing Parth

Hi Mark,
so, any update from Stackideas if you will build your own LMS?

Hello Chavy,

To be honest, this is actually not part of our plans and we have never really intended to build our own LMS. The guys over at Techjoomla has already started working with their own LMS and we'll most likely integrate with them

Mark,

Glad to see the cooperation and support for TechJoomla and their development of the new Shika eLearning Management System. It is the missing piece for my site and many others sites and II have faith that the TechJoomla Team will deliver Shika to is before the end of the year and do hope you integrate it with EasySocial.

Yep, indeed it seems to be a good match

There is another relatively new LMS vendor who has nothing but GREAT reviews. They are found at http://joomlalms.king-products.net/

The product is called LMS King. They provide support for JomSocial. I asked them about EasySocial. They responded via facebook messenger that they would get an engineer working immediately on EasySocial if I could get them a copy of the component. I assume they also would need access to the developers API. Anyhow, I am going to give them a try. But, I would need them to provide the support for EasySocial which they appear eager to do. Unfortunately I do not have a contact name there because I just made a connection with them through their facebook page. I have replied and asked them to give me a contact name and an email address so that Mark can be in touch with them about getting them a copy of EasySocial and the API access. They look like SUPPORT is their middle name. :-) My guess is this would be a win/win for everyone.

I am concerned there there may be a lot of overlap in some of their features with EasySocial and that is the one thing that makes me hesitate about trying their product. But, so far I do not see anybody else that is getting approval ratings in the JED like they are.

Sean

I just received the contact information for King-Products, the developers of LMS KIng:

Rob Joyce: rob@king-products.net

I realize that Stack-Ideas may be planning to work with TechJoomla instead but do hope that you will look at King-Products as well. I will want to work with whoever provides the best EasySocial integration and may need to wait a bit before putting too much energy into this but I did just purchase the LMS King because I did not know about the Shika eLearning Management System.

Thanks for the heads up on this Sean. The guys at LMS King could actually proceed with the integrations as we are actually not biased in working with anyone If they want, they could build these integration themselves.

Hello Mark,

Rob from King Products said he would get their engineers working on the Easy Social integrations right away! He is just looking for somebody to provide him a copy of the component. That would have to be your decision! :-). And I suspect you would have some API info to provide him.

Is this something you are interested in doing? If so, I hope you would then contact him and give him whatever he needs to begin. :-)

Of course I am interested to see whether the tech Joomla product becomes your preferred product for LMS.

I also wonder if King Products might be willing to provide you a copy of their LMS King software to evaluate. :-). They sure are getting rave reviews!

Sean

Sure, we would be glad to help him with this. We only need him to register on our site and send us a ticket at https://crm.stackideas.com

Thank you. I will let them know!

You are most welcome

Interestingly the people at King-Products have rave support reviews on the JED but my experience has been the opposite. I am now waiting almost two days for a reply on a ticket. So, I wish I had read here about TechJoomla and the Shika LMS before I spent money on King LMS. Of course they might redeem themselves still but I will wait on Shika to see how it turns out. It seems like you all like TechJoomla from experience so that gives me hope!
Sean

Just tested King LMS, well, the developers did not spend time to make their Demo site looking interesting. I would assume, installing their component would take considerable amount of time to make it look good and would want users to even look at it. Two thumbs down I guess

Sean,

As per two days waiting for Tech Support. Keep in mind that it is Monday today and it was a weekend, so two days wait is not unreasonable. Also, most Joomla extension developers are not like StackIdeas providing daily support, so I have learned not to expect such from other developers.

As per Shika, it is a product in development and as such at this point it is a vaporware product as yet unproven to satisify anyone's needs until we see and get to play with a beta to put it through it's features. It was announced a few months back when I uncovered reference to it on the TechJoomla site but has yet to be made available to anyone outside TechJoomla. My concern for Shika is that TechJoomla is biting off more than it can chew with too many products in development. The more products in development means more to support and improve and then quality and support drops off. As per the forums as of the past few months, there have been numerous reports of lame support for current TechJoomla products, and this does concern me, and others that the quality and support will not be what we expect.

My interest are in Shika is still there, but until I see it and use it in a beta form to see what it can do, I'm not putting my support behind it at all. Next week, I will take a look at the free version of King LMS to see what it can do, and I'll report my findings here.

Perhaps you might describe what it is you are trying to accomplish with a LMS on your site or sites?

I am of the belief that EasySocial Videos for 1.4 might be able to accomplish many things people are looking for when it comes to training and learning using video and playlists. This would require people suggesting their feature requests to Mark and his team before they implement Videos for 1.4, and for them to accept them as features.

Sometimes using a canon to go hunting is not the answer. Perhaps a full LMS like Shika and King LMS is not necessary for most people's needs. This would be best answered by people stating here in bullet form list what they are trying to accomplish in their EasySocial sites when it comes to adding training or learning features.

Hi Sean,

I checked out the King site and saw somewhere on the depths of one of there demo pages a reference to Joomlashine email address! Joomlashine make templates and I guess LMS now! My experience with them was not good but maybe others have different experiences.

I am inclined to agree with Randal. Maybe a fully blown LMS is not really the answer for most people. I need to check some out some LMSs. Most of the training that I watched was back in the DVD days!!! So I am probably out of date!

Maybe it makes more sense to try and influence the development of Stackideas video functionality than try and get some over-bloated, badly supported piece of Poo to work!

That is the short answer. I will think about what kind of functionality I would like next...

Of the top of my head a ROBUST video player with comments built into the video stream would be pretty essential. More to follow...

Off the top of my head, LMS type stuff:


I want it to be easy to find courses:

- have courses suggested to you on the basis of your profile
- be able to switch off the automatic notification of courses
- be able to search dynamically and manually!


Understand what the courses are about ASAP:

- get an overview of the courses as quickly as possible
- get an overview of a particular courses as quickly as possible
- be able to see previews for particular course modules


Levels of subscription:

- have different levels of subscription
- course with training video or course with training video and training material
- maybe even course with dedicated support!
- maybe even the possibility to post videos for comments etc edited with training material!


Encourage interaction in a dedicated Learning Social Community:

This is what I have not got my head around, Yet.
If I learn with a DVD it is me and the DVD. It is essentially a closed system and not very interactive!
If I watch a video on You Tube, pretty much any one can watch. Video expert and soccer moms alike are free to comment!
In an LMS people (who usually pay) watch stuff and to the best of my knowledge do not really comment as such!

Not like on Soundcloud for e.g.

https://soundcloud.com/

Like are there LMS out there where people actually write hey thanks for the tip Mark at minute 45 that saved my day and by the way I have found if you add XYZ you can blah!

I have been thinking a lot about this recently and keep coming back to the inescapable fact that this is all being built on a Social Community. So I could have a Googlehangout event. Invite people to participate and then give them some exercises. People can then attempt to do these exercises, present their exercises and comment! Or in other words foster an environment where people can learn from each other!

As a trainer I found this to be one of the most interesting exercises. Period. Give people a script, material and a time frame to edit something. It could be an information video about a cat and dog home what ever and then watch how each person edit the same piece completely differently despite the same script and material!!! If there were 6 in the group we would watch all 6 versions and have a group/social discussion! Maybe my case is very particular. I do not know?

Questions and tests at the end of a course are well and good but in my mind exercises that can be completed, viewed and commented on by all is way more interesting. I guess what I am talking about here is being able to put people into groups. Study groups!!!


Have a robust video player:

Simple stuff like non microscopic play-buttons. Some kind decent navigation. Jump to chapter markers. Fast forward etc


Make it easy for people to create play lists:

- Free play lists
- Paid play lists
- Playlists to be released in the future


Post your work:

Maybe you as a group made a remix of video XYZ from : https://archive.org/index.php

- And want to share a remix with your learning group! Or the world...

Thank you LAC Infosys, Randall and Paul for your comments!,
And I do like the idea of using Stack Ideas software to meet our goals! What we are wanting is to create a few things, all of which might not need a full blown LMS:
We want to provide Wellness Education in a logical order with some content being a prerequisite to moving forward.
We want to deliver our current lectures for people to watch in a logical order and then to interact in a way that we can verify the concepts are being understood.
We want to teach people how to immerse themselves in what we now do through live-in health immersion programs so that we do not have to be physically present to help people make lifestyle changes.
We want to provide a delivery method to allow people who have been through our program to then use our content to facilitate helping others go through the program but we need to have some way to ensure quality control.
We want to enable every home to become a wellness center and try to combat the disease and obesity epidemic that is spreading worldwide.
That is just a few thoughts for now.

I just communicated with the developer of LMS-King via facebook messenger where he has been super responsive. He was shocked when I let him know that I have two tickets outstanding in his ticket system. He stated he replies to ALL tickets immediately and that he uses MaQma Helpdesk from iJoomla and believes there is a problem with the MaQma Help Desk software. So, he will try to get to the bottom of that problem!

He also told me that he has registered on your site and sent in a ticket at https://crm.stackideas.com

So, hopefully LMS-King will build in good integration with EasySocial and there will be a couple of good LMS options for EasySocial. I may have over purchased and not needed this product but regardless, I am glad to see another company jumping into the EasySocial bandwagon. :-)

Sean

Yep, I have already associated a license for his account

Hi all,

I'm building my LMS site and I have the license of both King LMS and GURU. Both of them haven't integrated with ES at this time but it seems that King LMS will do soon.
Currently King LMS has a lot thing to do and still not as good (in term of design and stability out of box) and they reponse the ticket quite slowly. I hope that Rob will solve these issues soon + well intergration with ES (ED and EB also)
I have some exp with using these product, hope that I can discuss more with you who have the same need.

Thanks,
Giang Anh

Thanks for sharing this Le Giang. If there's any support that the developers from King LMS needs, please request them to add me on Skype and I will try my best to answer all their questions on Skype to ensure that they are on the right track.

My Skype id is marklee_777

Hi Giang Anh

Yes please keep us posted. Nothing like first hand accounts of experience with Components

best

Paul

Hey all,

Just thought I'd let everyone subscribing to this thread know about an update we just posted about Shika ..
Please view details and a hands on video here https://techjoomla.com/blog/shika-lms-for-joomla/shika-lms-in-it-s-final-development-stage.html

Hi Parth,

I am the Spanish translator of EasySocial, Invitex, JBolo and Broacast. It looks nice. Please, remind to Manoj that I am waiting to start Spanish Translation.

Best Regards

Thanks Manuel !

We'll let you know as soon as its ready for that !

I have been waiting Shika for a long time Parth :P

Parth,
It looks like you are leading the pack on getting out an LMS with EasySocial integration. i will look forward to trying it once it is out of beta. :-)
Sean

It looks incredible, I am impressed with what I see. Looks like your best designed and most ambitious component yet.

Thanks so much guys ! Glad you like it..
Like we have said elsewhere, we are adapting and changing.. You will see these changes in all our products over the next few months.

Thanks for your support everyone. Do comment on the blog and let us know your thoughts there .. It will help us drive the conversation !

It does look phenomenal and it will apparently be offering improvements to content authorship workflow as we have seen will come in EB5 and a nice pin layout as I've seen in EDU 2.0 (well really I am seeing Techjoomla is leveraging the UI/UX used across their components and this is a great move as we'll see ongoing improvements being leveraged in a consistent way throughout their offerings).

I'm waiting for version 1.2 which is tentatively the release that would offer multivendor features as they have in Quick2Cart which I purchased for my own site development.

Do any other ES site admin's see an opportunity to offer LMS course authorship capabilities to your community members? Share your thoughts over on their blog.

Parth,

It does look very impressive. I think I am about to change my mind about which LMS to use! Will the ability to charge for the courses require integration with Quick2Cart? I am needing to settle on a shopping cart as well. :-)

I tried to submit this comment on the TechJoomla.com blog and created an account there but was not able to get my comment to post unless I used facebook or discus. So, I am posting it here instead.

Your HTML editor looks so nice. I am wondering if that html content creator will one day be able to output SCORM or Tin Can content?

BTW, I kept thinking somebody was trying to skype me which I was watching your video but then I finally realized it was your computer that was receiving Skype notifications. :-)

BTW, LMS-King has this announcement on their page:

"Now with EasySocial and JomSocial support."

http://www.king-products.net/

Thanks for sharing this Sean

I emailed Rob from LMS King today. I specifically wanted to know if their EasySocial integration included:
1) Certificates from quizzes posted on the ES Profile for other members to see. (for public boasting on what they have accomplished)
2) ES social feed post when a user passes a quiz. (for social congrats from their friends)
3) Any integration with ES Points or Badges (points for passing a quiz and/or specific badges for passing each quiz)

None of this was included. Anyone else interested in banding together to "negotiate" with them to get these features added? Please contact me. We will have more influence with them as a group.

There's a great review of top LMS at this site. I found this an invaluable resource as I've begun discerning the latest capabilities, features, and market positioning of other firms offerings. I haven't found any that would position themselves within an integrated social network which is very compelling for niche markets.

@Norske, have you seen Techjoomla's Shika? With the exception of JReviews I haven't seen another company's products as well-integrated as TechJoomla today but also with clear plans for further integration in their product roadmap. And Mark from SI has already indicated in a recent post the intention of SI working more closely with TechJoomla in the future and we can only expect further fruits for all of us invested in the ES ecosystem from that effort.

Where do you see Shika falling short of your requirements?

"Where do you see Shika falling short of your requirements?"

Techjoomla has not stated how it will integrate with EasySocial. And it is not available yet. So...I have no way of knowing if it falls short or not.
However, I do know that it is priced considerably higher than LMS King for the basic quiz features I am looking for.

Further down in the comments section to the page I posted above, Parth states:

1. Multivendor/ Multi Author
True multivendor like we have in Quick2Cart will only be added in a later version.. Mostly 1.2 .. We will release a roadmap when we come out with version 1.0 . But yes this is a extremely high priority for us and we will bring it out very soon. But when we do it, we will do it it all out

2. Joomla ACL support is already present and you can right now restrict activities in the admin and frontend based on the ACL both for creation as well as viewing access rights

3. EasySocial Integration is right now based on Avatar, Groups integration and Activity stream integration. A basic app showing Courses enrolled in, grades, quick links to courses and possibly badges integration will possibly make it in 1.0.. but if not it will come in 1.1

It's not for everyone, but in this world of so-called agile development, lean development, and "iterations" it's the best time to have a positive influence on your LMS of choice be it LMS King or any other.

It is pricey and probably only suitable if your intended customers would be looking for traditional LMS features. If you're looking just for quiz features have you seen Community Quizes integrated with ES? I haven't used it but have used GPSTools. It appears the developer is responsive to ES integration in the forum.

Thanks for posting that bit about ES integration in Shika. I missed that statement way down in the comments.

I have already bought Community Quizzes. It has great basic quiz functionality. Exactly what I need actually. Unfortunately, the integration with ES is broken. So I am looking for alternatives.

Geez the prices are like soooooo expensive anyone have some extensive testing going on

edit: http://www.joomlalms.com/demo-site.html at least... 6 000$ pro unlimited....

Alexandre Cayer wrote:

Geez the prices are like soooooo expensive anyone have some extensive testing going on

edit: http://www.joomlalms.com/demo-site.html at least... 6 000$ pro unlimited....

I bought it, and GURU, LMS King as well. Shika seem the most promising one although there are still a lot issues with the current alpha ones.

The UI and UX of Shika is much better than LMS King and GURU. This is what I love most. The TechJoomla team seriously invest to this component so maybe that's why the price is really high. ES integration is also made already but it is only some basics integration.
Anyone need more info, please let me know.

Thanks for sharing this Giang I never tried Shika, any demo?

Yes, here it is http://hocbinhdan.com/khoa-hoc

Thanks for the link Le Giang! I noticed the video lessons use Jwplayer. Is that required for videos in Shika, or just how you chose to implement it?

Thanks for sharing Giang, is there an admin demo? Would like to test this

Hi Mark. Admin: Same as my site lamgame.vn :P
Hi Norske: it's actually youtube video. TJ maybe make a wrapper for YT video to implement resume feature

Thanks Giang

Hello Guys !

Great discussion you guys have going here ! Just stepping in to answer a few core questions.

1. Shika Early Adopter is already out with a great offer if you are interested in Buying and playing with the real product.
2. Shika has a nice developer API and has plugins for lesson types. In version 1, we will have JW Player that supports Youtube as well and another plugin for Vimeo as well..

We're putting up a page with more details on features soon. So stay tuned !

Update on Community Quizzes: They did get integration with ES profile working. So if you are looking for basic quiz integration with ES for a very reasonable price, check them out.
However, the ES profile app they have written does not display what Quizzes the user has passed, only which quizzed they completed. They also only integrate with their own Badge system, not ES's. So it doesn't work for my needs, but maybe it will for someone else.

I am still on the search for a basic quiz/test/LMS that is fully integrated with ES. The search continues!

There's a Techjoomla video seminar this Friday on Shika.

From their blog:

What will the webinar cover?

Organization of your learning content
The Anatomy of a Shika Course
What are Lessons ? What types are supported ?
Authoring Content
Assessment with Quizzes
Sell Access to courses and make money
Make Learning Social with our Social features and integrations
Reporting, Tracking and Scoring
Certification and Rewards

I just attended the Shika LMS Webinar. It looked pretty nice. Some of the educators were asking some pointed questions that I believe may have been helpful to Parth!

Unfortunately there were a LOT of technical difficulties which prevented Parth from demonstrating as much as he could have.

I was about to jump in and purchase the Early Adopter package even though I am not quite ready to start development but the pricing did surprise me. The first year is $400 for the Pro version and then it appears that it will be $700 per year going forward. So, I have to go back to the drawing board and really think about whether my needs are really that complex and whether I should just wait for EasySocial Memberships and try to figure a way to teach using some of the StackIdeas software. :-)

I am also curious if anybody on this forum has already started playing using Shika with integration with EasySocial. In particular I am concerned about performance since I have not been able to get my EasySocial site to perform as quickly as I would like. Some of it is my fault but my host keeps reminding me that there is a LOT to EasySocial. :-) Anyhow, if any of you are using Shika and EasySocial please provide some feedback here! :-) I am just a little worried that adding Shika could become the straw that breaks the camels back, regarding site performance. :-)

Sean

Hey Everyone..

Sorry for the bad audio quality today on the Shika webinar.. As Sean said we had to cut it short due to some internet issues here.. But we do hope to do a follow up one on hangouts soon..

On the pricing, we have tried and kept it the same or lower than competing LMSs for Joomla with similar features. 6 Month options are cheaper.. The Early adopter is an awesome deal overall with the biggest discounts..

We hope to keep adding awesome features and stuff like SCORM and TINCAN support is extremely effort intensive which is why the pricing is in the higher bracket.. We do hope we can compensate by giving top of the line features though..

Hi Sean,

You can find Shika + ES in my site : http://hocbinhdan.com
There are a lot of issues now but IMO, Shika seems is a very potential LMS. At least the Techjoomla team is putting a lot efforts to it.
For the performance I haven't tested but It seem that the Shika page runs quite fast. What I love must is the pin/board layout + ES integration.

Thanks,
Giang Anh

Hi Sean,

In my limited research I've found that the relative "market rate" for LMS is about $5 per student. That's just one beginning data point to consider relative value/pricing. Rather than compare Shika to other Joomla offerings, I've been surveying the broader market which I found to be very informative.

I'm involved in the Alpha beginning just about yesterday to really get started with it. I'm committed based on experience to date with other products in their portfolio and have a long-term view. When I have my site ready to share as Giang has done I will do so here but I probably won't be there for another month.

I usually have thousands of product requirements but with regard to LMS here is my critical short-list for my intended use. Shika reflects Techjoomla has spent better time up-front on design really getting it well-done. Not taking away from that great engineering, I presume core LMS features are a given (i.e. support SCORM etc.). But to differentiate my offering I need a social-based learning environment, and this is a relatively new/nascent concept, there's great opportunity to innovate but this is what we need to be successful:

1. front-end course authoring/management;
   
2. e-commerce capability enabling course creators to charge students similar to JGive/Quick2Cart;
   
3. access via a mobile App because that's the growin$ trend;
   
4. tight integration with ES (Techjoomla has some fall-back activity list/likes for non social sites but any site with ES needs ALL social through ES)
   
5. "live" event integration for blended learning (hybrid "live" event plus traditional LMS course content materials)
   

Parth can correct this list, and admittedly I only started playing this week, but so far it appears Shika only begins to hit #4 so far but they have indicated #2, #3, #5 are coming.

#1 is an absolute must for any "v1" LMS supporting social communities where you have more than 1 teacher/school/business to support and I hope I've just missed the obvious entry-point to these front-end course content creation/management features.

If I recall Parth did mention particular support for mobile during today's meeting (poor audio made understanding difficult). However I see his associated company (not sure of the exact nature of the relationship with TechJoomla) Tekdi advertises two interesting Apps, an "iLMS" or Shika for mobile plus eVentA, a full-featured app for events, so they do have a forward looking view that tells me they understand where the market is going. Would love to see an integrated Techjoomla/Tekdi product roadmap.

@Mark/Stack Parth has indicated support for Google Hangouts in the near future as a "live" course content component. Does it make sense to have a look and/or consider how this might factor into ES "live" events support as well? For all we know, maybe you guys have already been talking

Parth Lawate wrote:We hope to keep adding awesome features and stuff like SCORM and TINCAN support is extremely effort intensive which is why the pricing is in the higher bracket.. We do hope we can compensate by giving top of the line features though..

Hi Parth,

Cool product congratulations!

Your pricing bracket IMO is a little bit steep unless a website is offering a full LMS services that conforms with SCORM/TINCAN. Since you said that feature makes you decide to make the pricing higher, just thinking, if I may suggest. Why not make the base price lower but make these features like SCORM/TINCAN an option for those who needs it. IMO, it's a win win for you and those potential customers that wants you LMS but doesn't really need SCORM/TINCAN. For example, I want LMS for our Intranet, just for our Staff where they can go to and learn things. Since it's for our Staff we don't really need a comprehensive LMS with SCORM/TINCAN.

Thanks,

Jackson

Thank you Giang Anh, Eileen and Jackson for your replies,

All good thoughts. At this point I am not sure if I will need SCORM or TinCan. But, my understanding is that we would need to use another content creator to use those and then import the content into Shika.

I do like the idea of a less expensive version that does not use those formats as a possible way to bring down costs! I would like to use the Shika built in course creator and also use PowerPoint and PDF files.

Sean

Hi Sean,

At this point I am not sure if I will need SCORM or TinCan.

Exactly what I'm thinking, cause I don't need it either all I needed is a LMS that is capable of attaching any files and have integration with ES.

Guru is basic LMS but since the developer is not open to ES integration, it's out of the equation... for me

Thanks Eileen for the links, it is informative!

Jackson

I agree. Dont make pay people for what they dont need. Have them upgrade if needed.

Guys, is Guru API dependent or it is subscription depend ? If someone could share a copy I can look up how complex it is to link it to ES... just did it for Projectfork. If anyone is interested.

Alex

Hey Everyone !

Thanks so much for the feedback. We had initially planned for a lighter version but then we saw that in the serious Elearning industry SCORM and TINCAN are not really options.. But now that we see there is a demand .. we might see if we can offer something without it .. No promises yet though ! However we are making the system such that it has all these pieces as connectors - plugins or extensions so that technically this is possible..

Either ways... this wont happen for version 1.0 .. Right now the priority is to make what we have rock stable, take feedback and discuss with all the early adopters ( the Early Adopter forum is buzzing since the last few days .. Thanks Eileen and Giang and all our Early Adopters! ) and get out a solid LMS out that can be scaled . There are plans for a App Store/Directory of sorts to get other devs involved as well..

The main value SCORM and Tincan add is in the reporting and monitoring which is important in learning.. But yes.. we do see that sometimes you could do without it..

Social Integrations is a big priority for us and we saw that yesterday on the webinar as most questions were about that.. Sorry the technical issues meant we couldn't show you everything we had. But we have a huge emphasis on that and infact that is a big differentiator for Shika..

More updates to keep coming.. Those of you who are not early adopters yet , you can stay tuned to the conversation via our update blogs about Shika releases and comment . The latest blog is here https://techjoomla.com/blog/shika-lms-for-joomla/shika-v1-0-beta-4-is-out.html

Looking forward to more awesome feedback.

Thank you So much !

Hello Parth,

I am very disappointed with the Shika result. And It is not for your work I think you have done a very good job as much as exceeds my needs. When Shika was announced I was hopeful that it could be a good alternative to IGuru with EasySocial integration but I see that you are going to programme a better component and expensive than IGuru. There are many customers who don't have proffesional schools with a lot of students (I see Shika a good alternative to this sites) but there are other people who only needs a light component integrated with EasySocial to improve this main component.

For instance, in my website EasySocial and EasyBlog are the main pillars. The prize of both components are 99$ professional for ES and 79$ for EasyBlog. Anyway I have a lot of videotutorials but few students who pay a symbolic prize, I would only need a component cheaper than IGuru integrated with EasySocial for a prize around ES or EB with this options:
1.- Lessons tree to add videos vimeo videos with private domain or download files as .pdf.
2.- A payment system for accessing.

I have years of experience with Moodle (Joomdle) and IGuru and finally I have noticed that users (outside professional schools) who pay for learning withouth official certificates (cheap courses) as http://www.video2brain.com or http://www.lynda.com don´t want a learning site with a lot of text to read or questionnaries. The only want learn fast with videos. So there is a need to create a cheap component integrated with ES for this users. Please consider to create a light version of Shika with this settings and prizes.

Hi Everyone,

just stumbled on this thread. I have Guru installed on one of my other websites and really like it - specially since they introduced the front end course creation for teachers. Mine is integrated with jomsocial, which is fine for that particular website as i needed the Jomsocial Video component which EasySocial doesn't have just yet.

I had many teething problems getting Guru to work, and gave up. Then I decided to give it another go, as it was the closest LMS to what I needed. I am glad I did, as its now running great. I have to give iJoomla credit, they have been extremely helpful in ironing out my issues.

I also like where they are going with the new releases, so I am going to stick with it for now. I did try Community Quizzes and a couple of others, but eventually settled for Guru.

I want to use Guru with EasySocial on another site I have (as Jomsocial isn't suitable) so I am hoping iJoomla will eventually release a plugin for it.

I did look at Shika, but it was missing some of the better features that Guru offered and was a lot more costly.

Mel

@Manuel ! Thanks a lot for the honest feedback. You know we do value that a lot

We will definitely consider getting a lighter version out. Trying to do that right away will need some changes and affect current timelines.. So we will plan on designing a lighter version that's more affordable soon after the first release. We will keep everyone posted !

@Mel can you point out some features we are missing ?

Thank to you for listening us. If you need any suggests in the development of basic settings, let us to know. It will be a pleasure to collaborate it. I also use IGuru and I think that it could refer to the new front end for teachers and comissions I think that Shika Professional is more completed than IGuru and the problem of IGuru is the road map. In the past they were very slow to accomplish it.

Parth Lawate wrote:

@Mel can you point out some features we are missing ?

Hi Parth,

I have just re-visited your video (that was what my decision was based on and I now realize I should have looked at your feature list - which I have just done). The course certificates, course discussions, ratings all appear to be there

One of my issues with some components is the fact that regular users (i.e. Teachers in my case) have to go into the administrator area to do certain things. With the clients I work with this is an absolute no no. Its too risky. Does Shika have the ability for none administrators to create courses via the front end?

Whats missing from Guru for me is the ability to create other types of tests (or quizzes as you call them) they seem to be multiple choice options only.

Our ideal solution would include the option to add essay style responses, and in the perfect LMS, would include everything in Joomplace's Joomla Quiz Deluxe at: http://www.joomplace.com/elearning-extensions/joomla-quiz-deluxe.html (I love their quiz types)

In addition, Core Joomla's Community Quiz at https://www.corejoomla.com/products/community-quiz.html

Both offer really good products, but are missing the elements that both Guru and Shika have that present a better structure and more tools for creating proper e-learning courses.

I am not sure if that is of help to you.

Mel

@Parth, I hope you hear the early feedback from these prospective customers echos the feedback of your Alpha participants, well, at least this one.

1. Front End teacher course creation/management
   
2. the ability for community members to monetize their activities similar to what JGive & Quick2Cart offers
   

is what an LMS V1.0 social site needs.

I know ES required an enormous investment in r&d and they recoup that in part by requiring a support subscription before providing support.

Rather than delaying the introduction of these fundamental features in deference to a "light" version, maybe you could keep front-end course creation/management and monetization as a V1 priority and provide a "lower-cost" version by offering support terms of only a month or two, or create special pricing period for the first x months when V1 is released with a discount for the first y customers who signup, or sell versions without any support whatsoever at all for those features they don't want to use and accomplish that through ticket management rather than development cycles?

I could only imagine if ES created a light version by removing any particular features that might not be required by all future customers (i.e badges, the note App, certain modules, EasyBlog or Kenuna integration etc.?) it would frustrate their ability to get out the next rev with video support. This would not please their existing customers, I don't think

Alexandre Cayer wrote:

Geez the prices are like soooooo expensive anyone have some extensive testing going on

edit: http://www.joomlalms.com/demo-site.html at least... 6 000$ pro unlimited....

That is inexpensive for a SCORM-based LMS when you look at what else is out there.

$6000 for pro unlimited seems a little pricey but I personally think that if it does what you need it to do, why save on this In fact, if you were to hire a coder to perform specific tasks, it could easily surpass the $6000 mark

I guess we need to study our pricing model too Perhaps we are too cheap haha

You have to look carefully at what you want. Lots of people go for Moodle because it is free, but as Paul correctly remarked (along with many other pertinent ones too!) support is key. This is, I believe, one of the essential qualities that StackIdeas has identified along with a handful of other Joomla extension creators. If your site depends on an LMS and something goes wrong, you need same-day support.

The JoomlaLMS pricing is competitive when you look at commercial versions of Moodle e.g. Totara (and remember that the unlimited users pricing for the standard version is $2599 unlike $6199 for the Pro version). Another LMS that does work with Joomla is Docebo. This has an interesting pricing model based on active users, and has some great features, but it is not a Joomla component. The extension links to the Docebo account (a SaaS). Shika looks very interesting indeed, and from what I have seen is the closest competitor to JoomlaLMS. Integration with ES is a big plus, and I would hope that this would encourage social learning to complement formal e-learning courses. However only experience will confirm this expectation.

JoomlaLMS does have a fully functional trial version. If I have learnt anything in IT, it is that you have to test software properly before deploying it. Once you know it will do what you want, support (depending on the product) is essential in a business environment, together with well-designed on-demand training for the product. If you don't know how to use it, you're unlikely to make the most if it!

Thanks for sharing Andrew

@Giang Anh, how did you get so many courses to the root level (i.e. College Prep, Foreign Language, Business, Marketing, Developing Yourself, IT & Software, etc.) Seems in Beta 6 when I attempt to add course categories to the "root level" it doesn't work?

Before this thread goes extremely long, can you guys start a new thread for this instead?